Author
Topic: What are other beekeepers and clubs doing???? (Read 1748 times)

Hello there Everyone,Wanted to know if you are involved in a local beekeeping club, and if so, what sorts of things do you do.

I am currently looking for ideas that other groups do for fundraising, education, and fun outing activities.It is my desire to increase membership in our local group, and wished to ask the all of you for some of your brilliant ideas... for I know you have many.

The holidays are around the corner,and wondering if you do craft fairs or holiday shows, and if so, what do you sell, beyond the obvious honey and candles. New ideas are always appreciated, and it helps others to come up with new ideas too, we aren't trying to reinvent the wheel, just come up with some new styles.

Thanks for your feedback and info,It is ALWAYS Appreciated!!!!Cheers,JT

We belong to the Plymouth County Beekeeper's Association. We've just had our 'summer' picnic, not really in summer for some reason we were really late this year, but the weather has been so mild who knew? :lol:

Our big fundraiser is the Marshfield Fair, we have a building there where we sell honey, candles, we have a table where kids can roll their own candles, there are exhibits, and outside is the screen house, where someone donates a hive each year and someone goes in and handles the bees, it always amazes everyone that the beekeeper isn't getting stung.

We don't do holiday fairs, but we are having a holiday get-together on Dec. 15 at a member's house (annual event, house may vary). In January we will start the bee school for the new potential beekeepers (and old ones who just want to brush up!).

We've just voted in new bylaws and are going to try to keep business meetings down to a minimum so we can have more speakers come in. This year will be a new start, sort of, for the club, we'll see how it goes!

We do the South Florida fair each year as our big fund raiser. My job has been to build this organization back up. And it has been a success. I am managing to piss almost all of the old guard off but my results speak for themselves. We will be doing a beginner beekeeping course in Feburary. The first in a long time. We have been doing presentations a lot of them this year. We have had some good guest speakers. I am going to continue to this trend.

I need to get our bylaws modified but it is going to take a lot to do that. I am also going to look into having use secede from the coop extension and the state beekeepers association. Currently I do not like the level of assistance we are receiving from them. I don't like the way they have been pressuring the adminstration also.

In order to do fund raising the PBC Beekeepers charge $50 to do a presentation. We are charging $30 for the beginner course maybe more when the vote comes up. Including a one year membership in the PBC Beekeepers. We are looking into selling some resources such as books and other items on a resale basis as a possiblity. We are looking into a mentor program. I have a lot of work I am doing.

I am going to go to some of the other beekeeper meetings in the state next year to see what they are like.

Sincerely,Brendhan

Logged

The status is not quo. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it. Dr. Horrible

I belong to the Skagit County Beekeeper's Association in Skagit County, Washington. One of our major activities is a educational/sales both at our local county fair. We also have an extension farm from Washington State University and are actively engaged in providing the man power for montoring the development of survivor queens through there agriculture program. At the fair we also have a drawing, selling tickets for the prize which is usually a hive complete with bees.

Interestingly enough the best stock seems to be coming from the source I buy my queens from: Olympic Apiary in Port Angeles.

Logged

Life is a school. What have you learned? :brian: The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!

I'm the program coordinator. I try to get suggestions and then I propose a schedule and then the club approves it or makes amendments and approves it. This year we are trying to gear it more towards recruiting and nurturing beginners.

>I am currently looking for ideas that other groups do for fundraising

We have a booth at the State Fair and we sell honey ice cream.

> education

We have tried, as much as we can, to have meetings with hands on beekeeping at various member's bee yards. For winter we will do some beginner classes.

> and fun outing activities.

Other than the meetings that's about all the outings... but we often have a pot luck. That always seems to bring more people.

We have speakers at every meeting...this month it was Jennifer Berry, in November it will be Keith Delaplane (lucky to live in Georgia where all these beekeeping folks are). We sometimes have fun programs like everyone brings something they devised for their beekeeping endeavors - one of our members is a Rube Goldberg of beekeeping.

Our fundraising in the past included raffles of donated items at most meetings (via buying tickets at the beginning of the meeting). I don't know why we aren't doing that this year but we do have an annual fundraising auction at our beekeepers picnic in September. We offer a short course for new beekeepers in January at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. http://www.beekeepingshortcourse.com/

We make money on the short course every year - it costs $75 to attend and we usually have upwards of 45 people attending. Jamie Ellis and his wife Amanda always come to present as well as other local beekeepers. The cost to attend the workshop includes lunch and a goody bag of take-homes inspiring to the new beekeeper.

We usually make a good bit of money on the auction in September as well - items are donated from homemade bread to beekeeping equipment or weekends in vacation homes.

For fun in addition to the September auction and picnic, we also have a holiday party in December.

Hope that helps,

Linda T in Atlanta

Logged

http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"You never can tell with bees" - Winnie the Pooh

There are a couple of clubs in L A.I don't belong there schedule dosen't meet mine and they are to far away.But I'm giveing a talk on Urban Beekeeping the Saturday after Thanksgiveing at the Catholic Church its a community envolvement thing with the Sheriff the Urban Farm and some other people.I'm going to do what Tillie did for her talk.kirko

Logged

"It's not about Honey it's not about Money It's about SURVIVAL" Charles Martin Simmon

>if you could elaborate a little more on what you say about the internal temperature of the hive.

Well, it's the temperature inside the hive but outside the cluster.

>I may elaborate myself on my queery. Our temperatures in the wintertime are varied, but I am thinking that our average temperatures (and I will use F) would be around 40-45 F, varies alot, but usually not too much colder than that, because of the rainy climate. We can have hard freezing for a couple of weeks in January, and that is common, but not usually before or after this time. Your comment suggests to me that the bees in my particular area would be able to move to their food stores easily for most of the winter here and not starve because they could not reach it. Did I get this information correct?

Basically they may not be warm enough to totally rearrange the stores at 40 F but the cluster can easily find the stores and move to them. At -20 F they can't move at all. They get stuck, especially if there is brood. Yours could still get the cluster stuck on brood, but at 40 F the cluster can send out "fingers" to find the stores.

On a sunny day, I have seen mine take a cleansing flight in the 40s. But they go right back in. Upper 40s on a sunny calm day I've seen them fly more. But the books all say that's wrong. :)

I am amemeber of South Jersey Branch of NJBA. I am likely to join exec board next week.I want to expand memebership and identify the honey bee for more lay-people. Mt idea is to place hives in areas that get lots of visual traffic and post big signs- This hive maintained by SJBA. Contact us at www whatever and edcucate the public. Sell this honey or donate honey from these hives to orgabnizations at the holidays and get the lcal newpaper to atend and visit the hives etc I litwerally want a hive in the middle of the newjersey turnpike and am investigating its possibility.

Logged

"The more complex the Mind, the Greater the need for the simplicity of Play".

I'm in the Central Jersey branch of the NJBA. I was a bit turned off by the first meeting, so I haven't been super active. I seem to be located at the northernmost limit of the group, and the bulk of members seem to be located near the southern end. The meetings are quarterly, on a Friday night, and at least an hour drive away. The discussion about rotating the meetings among 4 locations (one of which was actually 15 mins away from me) went well for 3 of the locations, but most people said they wouldn't attend a meeting held in the 4th (guess which one).

The meetings are also 2.5 hours of club business followed by 1 hour of a demonstration/education. Not feeling particularly wedded to the organization, I'm not so keen on driving such a distance to hear the minutes, approve them, hear the budget, etc. I'm interested in learning how to manage my bees. Once I get more sure of myself there, I'll probably take an interest in the organization as a whole.

Also, while it would be nice to have some very local advice, I find that being able to have several answers to my questions within 12 hours here on these forums is a lot easier than trying to contact someone in the group, waiting for a response, and having to go back and forth for clarification.

I think my group is fairly small, and I'm not sure what kind of non-meeting activities they do. I'm also pretty shy, so it's hard for me to get motivated to get together and interact with a group of strangers.

Logged

"The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer." - Egyptian Proverb, 2200 BC

We make money on the short course every year - it costs $75 to attend and we usually have upwards of 45 people attending. Jamie Ellis and his wife Amanda always come to present as well as other local beekeepers.

Dr. Ellis was the main speaker at the Arkansas Beekeepers Association a couple weeks ago, he is an excellent speaker. I learned a lot from his material and I think the entire group enjoyed his lectures.